Welcome to the roller coaster ride of the review world. Enjoy the highs and learn from the lows.

Starza Thompson from Windy City Reviews has reviewed all four books in the Street Stories series, so her opinion means a lot to me. Which means it is especially wonderful to hear the nice things she had to say about Cry Baby Cry. Here are my favorite parts:

“Perhaps one of her best stories yet, Cry Baby Cry addresses some hard-to-discuss issues surrounding religion, LGBT youth, prostitution, and homelessness, all within the context of a mystery that series main character Jo Sullivan is trying to solve. The book gives the reader a taste of what it’s like to be homeless, with a baby, and with serious and life-threatening danger constantly threatening you and the lives of the people you care about.”

and

“With that said, I do appreciate Borys’ ability to write about LGBT characters and make them a focus of her book in a respectful and interesting manner…

Cry Baby Cry Earns its first five stars. Nice!

Sheri Wilkerson, who previously reviewed Box of Rain and gave it a five star review, provided the first online response to Cry Baby Cry. She also rated this book five stars on Goodreads, which I hope will tempt other readers to see what it is she liked so much. Thank you, Sheri!

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https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/06/11/pride/#respondTue, 12 Jun 2018 01:00:13 +0000http://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/06/11/pride/Birthing the Next Book: When Lonny moved on, Avril walked over to the mirror on the far wall just to…]]>

Cry Baby Cry is done! Watch for pre-order links later this week on Amazon and news on my July 1 launch party

When Lonny moved on, Avril walked over to the mirror on the far wall just to check that the woman hadn’t been making fun of her. Nope. Still fabulous. Still sparkly with the glitter and hairspray she’d spritzed on before leaving the house.

With the pre-order for the completed Cry Baby Cry going up on Amazon this week, this will be the last sneak preview excerpt for CRY on this blog. I hope you enjoy it and will check back for future notes when I start to birth my next Street Stories novel.

Avril had seen an article once on coffins made with glitter. They came in any color. She would pick all the colors, she thought. Tell them to spray all the damn sparkles on the thing when it was time for her funeral and toast her with champagne as they lowered her into the dirt.

]]>https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/06/11/pride/feed/0dborysCat Pee and Deadlineshttps://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/04/30/cat-pee-and-deadlines/
https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/04/30/cat-pee-and-deadlines/#respondMon, 30 Apr 2018 21:57:25 +0000http://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/04/30/cat-pee-and-deadlines/Birthing the Next Book: Jo threw her toothbrush into her makeup bag, the other hand holding the phone to her…]]>

I don’t want to jinx it, but even though I’m behind schedule, the writing has been going great the last couple of days.

Jo threw her toothbrush into her makeup bag, the other hand holding the phone to her ear. She tried not to let annoyance get the best of her as she listened to Avril make life more complicated than it needed to be.

The bad news: At 5000 words short of my goal, it looks like I’m not going to make my May 1 deadline for having this first draft done.

The woman had practically begged to be allowed to take care of Topaz so Jo wouldn’t have to delay her trip downstate, and now she wasn’t readily available to pick up the keys.

“Well,” Jo said, trying to remain reasonable. “Where do you live? Maybe I can drop the keys by on my way out of town.”

“No, no, that wouldn’t be a good idea. You’d be going out of your way. Isn’t there someplace you can leave them for…

Each book in the Street Stories series stands alone, yet carries continuing themes like character growth.

Like the nursery rhyme game, each Street Story novel stands alone. What does progress throughout the series, though, is Jo growing as a person. Jo’s relationship with Jack is one way to show that growth.

Once the two of them were settled, Jo pulled Jack out into the hallway with a firm grip that left red prints on his forearm. When she saw there was no one else in the corridor, she put one hand on her hip and stabbed him in the chest with her other finger.

“I know you’ve got rules you need to follow, Jack,” she said, seething. “And there’s good reasons for them, I realize that. If there weren’t rules, it would be too easy for assholes to really exploit these kids by pretending they were helping. But I say fuck those rules, Jack. Today I just want to screw all the rules and do the…

]]>https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/03/26/the-cheese-stands-alone/feed/0dborysConversation Without Condemnationhttps://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/03/19/conversation-without-condemnation/
https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/03/19/conversation-without-condemnation/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 16:32:58 +0000http://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2018/03/19/conversation-without-condemnation/Birthing the Next Book: As Jo shut the door behind her, something on the bulletin board across the hall caught…]]>

Manipulation can be subtle, and in the guise of caring.

As Jo shut the door behind her, something on the bulletin board across the hall caught her eye. The perfect Caucasian family smiled from a poster: mother, father, son, and daughter with bright white teeth and perfectly groomed features. Above their heads the poster read “And God created them in His own image. Male and female he created them.” The words below the model family were “Empowered Identity Workshop: Wednesdays @ 6 p.m.” In smaller print was a notice that the cost for attending the workshop series was $200. The sessions were open only to girls aged twelve through sixteen.

The workshop, and many of Martin Oberhaus’s words, reflect a real pastoral interview I found while researching the subject of gay conversion techniques.

“Did you have questions about the workshops?” someone asked from down the hall.

Jo turned to see Martin Oberhaus smiling widely. His teeth were as white and…

I used backstory material to write this dream sequence for Lily.

“WESTMONT HIGH SCHOOL” The words engraved in plaster above the door drew Lily’s eye as she walked up the front steps.

Her heartbeat sounded loud as bass drums in her ears. The voices of the other students were a slow motion wave of sound both garbled and hostile. Their bodies a blur as they rushed past. Their glances foreign and invasive.

This dream scene from Cry Baby Cry actually started out as a backstory I wrote at the beginning as I was getting to know Lily better. Go read the original post HERE if you want to see what it started out as.

A hand grabbed her, some boy’s arm encased in a red and yellow letter jacket. “Hey. Who are you? You don’t belong here.”

]]>https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2017/12/13/when-backstory-comes-forward/feed/0dborysThe Sins of the Daughterhttps://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2017/12/01/the-sins-of-the-daughter/
https://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2017/12/01/the-sins-of-the-daughter/#respondFri, 01 Dec 2017 20:41:25 +0000http://streetstoriessuspensenovels.com/2017/12/01/the-sins-of-the-daughter/Birthing the Next Book: Lou ran a hand through his hair, causing the short strands to stand up even further.…]]>

What was Lily’s father really like? I wrote this scene to help me figure that out.

Lou ran a hand through his hair, causing the short strands to stand up even further. He had failed his Lord. That is what bothered him, more even than the threat of being reported to the police.

I was having a hard time writing one of Lily’s scenes and realized it was because I needed to know more about her father, so I decided to write a scene from his perspective.

Their cause was righteous, therefore God would protect them. The Lord had laid this mission upon his heart, to save these misled sinners and set them on the true path. But how could he be forgiven the sin of his failure to save his own daughter from the mouth of hell?

He dropped to his knees beside the couch, head bowed, clasped hands pressed tightly to his forehead. “Please, Jesus. Grant me the wisdom and courage and strength to…

A good writer always puts a piece of herself into each character. For Jo I picked tequila.

He makes my skin crawl. Why had she told Lily that? Jo poured another shot of tequila and sprinkled cinnamon on a slice of orange. Keisha’s breakfast nook was already littered with a half dozen naked strips of orange peel, flecks of cinnamon dust, and a quarter-sized puddle of spilled Don Julio.

Jo is not me, the author, although all my characters have traits I can relate to. However, I had fun making tequila Jo’s alcohol of choice because it is mine as well. Especially with cinnamon and oranges.

“Bottoms up,” she told Topaz as she licked the cinnamon, swallowed the alcohol, and bit into the orange. “Mmmm. Better than salt and lime any day.”

The cat blinked, bored, and licked the pads on one paw. She’d been sitting on the chair opposite Jo for the last half hour, watching her every move like a feline federal judge about to…

I love it when characters come alive on the page to me. Even if they are just minor characters.

Sometimes a scene writes itself. The characters start talking and I just record what they say and do. I know it’s just my subconscious speaking, but I also know the scene I wrote last week is a direct reflection of kids I knew and conversations I overheard when I was a volunteer at the Night Ministry’s Open Door shelter in Chicago.

Hopefully they come across as real to you, too. Click on the quote below to read the whole scene and then let me know if you could see these minor characters as clearly I could while writing about them.